Two Techies Top Forbes’ Billionaires List, Social Biggies Take a Hit

The new list of top Forbes’ Billionaires in the United States is out and there have been some alarming revelations. Where Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates has maintained his position as the richest man of the United States yet again in the Forbes Billionaires list, social media magnets have taken a hit.

Two big names—Mark Pincus of Zynga Inc. and Eric Lefkofsky of Groupon were eliminated from the list entirely. Another surprise came with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, whose ranking dipped from being 14 on the list last year to 36 this year. Zuckerberg was the biggest dollar loser in Forbes’ latest ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans. With the poor launch of the company’s IPO in May, the company has seen a drop in market value. This resulted in the social media entrepreneur’s shareholdings being slashed to half of last year. This was a cut of $8.1 billion in net worth.

Where Gates has a current net worth of $66 billion, Zuckerberg’s net worth is an estimated $9.4 billion. Investor Warren Buffett has maintained his second position worth a total net worth of $46 billion. Another techie, Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, is third in the list with $41 billion.

The magazine has said that 241 of the members got richer in 2012 and net worth for 66 of them fell down. Rising stock prices and rebound in real estate values are two primary factors for these changes, the magazine has suggested.